“What was that?” Gina whispered.
Simon was lighting a cigarette, with the feeling that this was a moment for rather special indulgence.
“I think that was Dino’s curtain call,” he said calmly. “As he told us, he should never have come back for these souvenirs of that old boyish escapade. But—” he reverted to Italian again for the benefit of Donna Maria, who had raised her head in be-muddled but fearful surmise — “I suppose greed got him into this, and it’s only poetic that greed should put him out. Digging up this money cost him enough time for me to catch up with him, and then I only had to gain a little more time for the police and the army to catch up with me. We’ve been having a lot of fun since last night which I’ll have to tell you about. A little while ago I managed to take over the fastest transportation, which was mine to begin with anyway because I hired it most respectably; but the head policeman this time is nobody’s fool, and I knew he would not take long to guess that this might be the place where I was going.”
“The police,” Donna Maria repeated stonily.
Simon looked at her steadily.
“This one, Marco Ponti, is not like some others,” he said. “I think I could persuade him to let Dino Cartelli be buried under his own name — shot while trying to escape after digging up his share of the bank robbery, which he buried in the Destamio house, where the family had been kind enough to receive him as a guest in his young days, knowing nothing about his Mafia connections. I don’t think he will mind leaving Lo Zio to another Judge whom he will have to face soon enough. I think Marco will buy all that — if you will agree not to try to keep Gina here against her will.”
“But where will I go?” Gina asked.
“Wherever the sun shines, and you can dance and laugh and play, as a girl should when she’s young. You could try St Tropez for a change from everything you’ve been used to. Or Copenhagen or Nassau or California, or any other place you’ve dreamed of seeing. If you like, I’ll go some of the way with you and get you started.”
Her wonderful eyes were still fixed on him in demoralizing contemplation when the jangle of the front door bell announced an obligatory but obviously parenthetic interruption.